The Bezos Earth Fund is awarding $24.5 million in grants to safeguard coastal ecosystems across Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, and Ecuador, marking a major step toward creating the planet’s first cross-border marine biosphere reserve, Reuters reports.

The largest grant, $13.85 million, will go to the nonprofit Re:wild, funding the creation and strengthening of coastal reserves and nursery zones for hammerhead sharks, turtles, and other marine species. “It’s an incredibly important area for migration of species. The only way you can protect this place is doing it in a transboundary way,” said Cristian Samper, head of nature at the Bezos Earth Fund.

Over the past two years, the four countries have tripled the size of protected seas to more than 600,000 square kilometers across 10 zones, with plans now to consolidate them into a single biosphere reserve. Samper added that discussions are underway for a similar reserve in the Pacific, potentially five times the size of the continental United States.

The grants are part of a broader $1 billion initiative to achieve the global goal of protecting 30% of the world’s land and oceans by 2030, in collaboration with 10 other philanthropies under the “Protecting Our Planet Challenge.” To date, the Bezos Earth Fund has deployed nearly $700 million, while the coalition has contributed over $3 billion toward the $5 billion target. A second round of grants for the Pacific region is expected in 2026.